Dear genital-men

Hi dear, can I see your vegene (vagina) and bob (boobs)? Several women are used to receiving obscene messages like these from random and not-so-random men on the photo sharing application, Instagram. Some of the messages are inquiries into the colour of their bra, the size of their breasts, a peek into their skirts, their size preference for the male genitalia and the likes. Messages like these leave women feeling disrespected and reduced to materialistic possessions.

Instagram account @gentlemenofIndia recognises the urgency of the deeply entrenched issue of online harassment. The admin, who is ironically called 'Dear' – derived from the rudimentary 'Hi Dear' that sits stagnant in every other girl's inbox – started the page to bring these perpetrators to light by calling them out.

What Dear (who prefers to maintain his/her anonymity) does through this page is share screenshots of chats initiated by online abusers and harassers and tags them in these posts. "We strongly believe that the name-and-shame technique is the only way that abusers will know their actions have consequences. Perhaps, the sole reason perpetrators continue sending derogatory messages to women, even teenage girls, is because they think they are safely hidden behind their usernames," explains Dear.

Using their weapon against them is where the trick lies, says Dear, who laughs at how most of his/her friends don't know that the 28-year-old runs this page.

Gentlemen of India was started towards the end of February this year and took no time to grab attention. Today, within a span of just two months, the page has close to 7,600 followers with young girls and women tagging their perpetrators in new posts every day. "We were quite surprised at how quickly we grew. It only shows how real the problem is – women feeling unsafe online," laments Dear.

Online harassment messages aren't limited to a stray 'hello'. "Very soon, we started getting really serious complaints. We were getting tagged in posts where men spoke to women in a sexually degrading manner, asking them about their "rates", often taking it upon themselves to fix said rate, proposing cheap antics, using illicit language, sending unsolicited d*ck pictures, pestering them time and again for a response when ignored, and in most cases, getting really aggressive soon afterwards," lists Dear.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. "Women are bullied online with threats of leaking their contact details, personal information, and worst of all, their pictures," lists the admin.

Despite these efforts, the name-and-shame tactic is not foolproof. Once tagged, a perpetrator can untag himself, change his username, and even block Gentlemen of India to avoid future tagging.

"So we have found a way around this – we tag them in our Instagram stories. This way, even if they change their usernames, one will be directed to the same profile. Another thing we are doing is tagging a handful of the perpetrator's followers, so even they know his real face," explains Dear.

At the same time, the core team at Gentlemen of India is urging people to sign a petition asking Facebook and Instagram to modify their reporting policies. "When we call out harassers online, we also report their profiles. But every time we reported an account on the grounds of harassment and nudity, Instagram told us these men don't violate their policies! We are only trying to get Instagram's attention on this issue," the admin explains. Our guess is as good as Dear's: Instagram's algorithm can only detect bullying comments and not bullying direct messages.

Simultaneously, they are creating an online directory, where one can access critical information of helplines, bureaus from different parts of the country that work for women's safety online, cyber security cells in the country, and more.

Dear is welcoming submissions for ideas and collaborations with fellow 'Dears' who are fighting these men and their immoral ideology.

With the initiative growing fast, Dear stresses on the importance of making the Internet a democratic safe space for women. "This was why we chose to keep the page anonymous – we didn't want to divert the attention from the cause by naming the admin," Dear concludes.